GameStop Falls as Margins Decline
Updated from 9:28 a.m. EDT
GameStop
(GME) - Get GameStop Corp. Class A Report
reported second-quarter results Thursday that easily beat expectations, although shares traded lower as gross profit as a percentage of sales slipped from a year ago.
The video-game retailer said it had net income of $57.2 million, or 34 cents a share, for the quarter ended Aug. 2. Those results more than doubled from $21.8 million, or 13 cents a share, in the year-ago period. On average, analysts expected GameStop to notch a profit of 28 cents a share, according to Thomson Reuters.
GameStop said revenue rose 34.8% from a year ago to $1.8 billion as same-store sales jumped 20% during the quarter. Wall Street's average sales target was $1.69 billion.
"In the second quarter, we produced record revenues in each of the geographical regions where we operate," said R. Richard Fontaine, GameStop's chairman and CEO, in a statement. "By prioritizing our investments and focusing our resources, GameStop continues to significantly outperform the specialty retail segment as a whole, when comparing top-line growth, comparable store sales, and net earnings growth."
However, gross profit as a percentage of sales fell from the year-ago quarter to 26.8%. Shares of GameStop were losing $2.87, or 6.6%, to $40.65.
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Looking ahead, GameStop said third-quarter earnings should fall in a range of 36 cents to 38 cents a share, compared with the average estimate of 36 cents a share. The company said that it should see a fourth-quarter profit of $1.37 to $1.40 a share, which would be above the consensus target of $1.36 a share.
For the full year, GameStop expects earnings per share to come in between $2.45 and $2.50, above the Thomson Reuters estimate of $2.39 a share. For the upcoming fiscal year, GameStop said that earnings per share will grow at least 25%, which would equate to between $3.06 and $3.13 and top expectations for a profit of $2.99 a share.
Among other retailers that sell video games,
Circuit City
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was down 0.6%, and
Best Buy
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was losing 0.8%.
